Interview between H. L. Stevenson and LeRoy
Keller

(Following is an interview between H. L. Stevenson,
former UPI vice president and editor-in-chief, and LeRoy
Keller, former UPI general sales manager, at a New York
restaurant on Feb. 18, 1993. It was transcribed in May 1996 by
retired UPI San Francisco bureau manager Dick Harnett. The
tape begins after the conversation had started).

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Keller: First the decision in Chicago in a suit brought
by Marshall Field that broke up the AP monopoly. The second was
the entrance into radio.

Stevenson: When AP got into radio?

Keller: Yes. We had a strong positions in both areas
before that and we were weakened greatly by that, by the decision
of AP to go into radio.

Stevenson: Well, AP always had a built-in advantage,
being a cooperative. At the end of the year they could say,
"Well, we need to split up the losses." And I doubt if
they ever had any profit that they would admit.

Stevenson: Lee, you really enjoyed the international.
You did so much.

Keller: Yes, I did.

Stevenson: Do you remember some of the highlights? Some
of the low lights? Overseas? You spent all your time in domestic,
domestic sales manager.

Keller: Well, the first thing, I went to work on
communications. That was the first thing I did, because
Australia, the Far East would have blackouts, sun spots, radio
and all that, it was terrible. I courted the IT&T. I got
acquainted with them and persuaded them to offer what they called
the Press Bulletin service. They put us in Manila. IT&T
eventually offered us the Press Bulletin service for $500 a
month, moving our main trunk news to Manila. From there the radio
reception was much better and we moved our headquarters from
Tokyo to Manila.

Stevenson: I remember that.

Keller: Later.

Stevenson: Is Ernie Hoberecht still around?

Keller: No. By that time he was out, and that's another
story by itself. I know what happened. We opened our headquarters
and Ferdinand Marcos came there to the opening and cut the
ribbon. I had to explain what opening the Manila bureau as the
Far East news center meant. From then on they began to subdivide
the cable. The satellite came in, and we got lines all over the
world, one telephone line we could subdivide for cables and
pictures and everything. Pretty soon we had cable service from
Sydney Australia, Melbourne Australia, to Tokyo and Moscow, all
over. That was a tremendous thing.

Stevenson: Did it help our business?

Keller: I'm sure it helped our business. There were no
blackouts any more.

Stevenson: With the radiocast you would get sun spots
and blackouts.

Keller: We had the old Divatel. Remember that?

Stevenson: I don't remember working with it. I remember
the name. At that time, (Bill) McCall was in Latin America?

Keller: Yes.

Stevenson: And Curran was in Europe. I guess Beaton had
replaced him.

Keller: Yes. Mims and Curran fell out some way.

Stevenson: Is that right?

Keller: Mims wanted Curran out of there.

Stevenson: I heard that somewhere.

Keller: Tom was bitter about that because he was the
prime promoter of Mims Thomason.

Stevenson: I think Tom Curran and Bart were very close.
I think Bart and Tom Curran were close, because Tom speaks of him
very affectionately.

Keller: Yes, they were great pals. You had to know
Bart. News people didn't like Bart because he was very chintzy.
But Bart was a good newspaperman. He could write a good story.
But he didn't give the news department the respect it deserved.

Stevenson: You took over as international vice
president in the '60s?

Keller: Yes, '64.

Stevenson: That's when Joe Jones retired. Joe, I guess,
had been really strong on Latin America.

Keller: Yes, Joe spoke a little Spanish. When Joe went
to Lima, I think he was manager down there at one time, he got
acquainted with Peter Grace.

Stevenson: This of the W. R. Grace family?

Keller: He paled around with him. That gave him a huge
entre into South America.

Stevenson: I can see that, because Grace was so strong,
and still is.

Keller: You're right. . . . You ask me questions and I
probably will have the answer.

Stevenson: Well, I will do that. Bryce Miller. You
remember Bryce Miller in Saigon?

Keller: I do.

Stevenson: He gives you great credit. He says you came
out there once and spent time with him. We were trying to get
some time off for those fellows, to take a week off every three
or four months.

Keller: I got home leave insurance.

Stevenson: He says you helped push it all through. He
says he'll never forget you. And he recalls that somewhere along
the way you got shot at and he helped you write a story.

Keller: Mims upbraided me when he read the story, for
putting my life in danger. "You shouldn't do that."
Well, I'll tell you, I didn't think about it at the time, and
Merriman Smith's son was going to take a helicopter and fly over
the Viet Cong area and there was a mountain out there. A bunch of
American Marines had captured this mountain top, but all around
them below were the Viet Cong. Smith took the helicopter over
there. This is the way they captured him. By putting bazookas and
other armaments up there on top of the hill we (the Marines)
warded off the Viet Cong. What are those other weapons?

Stevenson: Mortars, mortars.

Keller: So we landed up there. The poor guys up there.
They were insulated and were out of beer and nearly out of food.
They couldn't bring anything up by land line. They had to bring
it in by air. I think it was the first time in weeks anybody
landed there. They couldn't offer us a beer or anything. We
landed up there and flew over the area occupied by the Viet Cong.
I don't know whether we were shot at or not. I do know they said
there were white puffs below us. I had a flack jacket on and
said, "Well, I don't want to get shot in the ass. I'm going
to take this off and sit on it." Which is what I did.

Stevenson: You knew Merriman Smith's son then. He was
quite a young man.

Keller: Yes.

Stevenson: Smitty was devastated when he was killed.

Keller: He was a nice boy.

Stevenson: I'm sure it had something to do with
Smitty's later drinking and depression.

Keller: It's a terrible thing to lose a son. Roger lost
a grandson, you know, and that's hateful, too.

Stevenson: I remember that. I do.

Stevenson: Bryce also told me when he went out to
Vietnam in the '60s, '65 or '66, Fran Leary gave him certain
instructions to find out some of the things that Ernie Hoberecht
was doing. Bryce said, "I tried." In effect, Bryce is
saying he tried to gather some evidence against Hoberecht.
Hoberecht by then had been there almost 20 years. What happened
to Hoberecht?

Keller: Hoberecht had passed word around that if anyone
ever fired him he had the goods on everybody in his secret files.
We sent a young guy out from Ohio named Ron Wills.

Stevenson: I remember the name.

Keller: Ron Wills got chummy with the Mainichi people.
It turned out that the Mainichi people didn't like Ernie
Hoberecht at all because he still kept the attitude that we were
conquerors and they had to do what we wanted. They resented that.

Stevenson: Long after the war.

Keller: They hated him. Ron Wills wrote me a long
letter about this. I went to Mims. Mims didn't like Hoberecht
anyway because he feared that Hoberecht might be named president
because Roy Howard liked him so much. I showed this letter to
Mims and he said. "We have got to get Hoberecht out of the
Far East." He immediately sent me to Tokyo. Ernie Hoberecht
was in India at the time. Mims sent a cable to Hoberecht,
"Please come to New York instead of going to Tokyo. Come
directly." I looked through the files to see that there was
nothing. Then we locked them up and changed the locks on them.
There wasn't anything there.

Stevenson: In Tokyo?

Keller: Yes.

Stevenson: Hoberecht was in New York. I see.

Keller: I ordered Don Brydon out to take his place.
Brydon had worked out there as a newsman.

Stevenson: That's right.

Keller: So we made . . . Don succeeded Hoberecht.

Stevenson: But they never found anything improper?

Keller: No. It was all hot air.

Stevenson: He was quite adept at hot air. He loved his
reputation. A lot of us sitting in the grandstands had the
feeling that Ernie Hoberecht thought HE was the United Press in
his little kingdom.

Keller: When I first went out there he had a car meet
him downstairs in the Mainichi building where our office was. At
five o'clock or six o'clock, whatever it was, he would put on a
Homberg and carry a cane and a brief case and go down to the
limousine to take him home. He had a certain style, which you
can't fault him for. But he demeaned the Japanese. They resented
it. That was his problem.

Stevenson: I never heard that. It is a good point. He
was there right after the surrender, wrote two or three books and
things that made him popular. But I could see that Ernie would do
that.

Keller: He married a Vietnamese girl, a very pretty
girl, Lorraine. But he deserted her and took the children.

Stevenson: Is that right. Well, he's down in Oklahoma
now. Every now and then you see his name.

Keller: I remember when he had these two children from
Lorraine, the Vietnamese girl. He used to say, "I love these
children as much as if they were my own."

Stevenson: We had a lot of characters around the world.
Well, what happened to Ernie? Was he living too much in the past,
with this Imperial attitude and all that? We had a number of
these fellows that ran their own little kingdoms. At least,
that's what I am told.

Keller: We had one in, Mazandi. Was he in Tehran. What
they had going for them was that they used United Press as a
facade to bolster what they were doing and then they went on and
built their independent kingdoms.

Stevenson: Of course, UP had grown so big it couldn't
watch all these fellows that close. You had to have a strong
manager, a strong manager whom you could trust.

Keller: Well. I had to replace Bennyhoff in Australia
because he had gotten in a terrible mess down there.

Stevenson: What sort of mess? I've heard he was a great
womanizer.

Keller: Bart loved Bennyhoff, and when Fred McCabe
quit, Bart wanted Bennyhoff to go down there (to Dallas) as
division manager. He felt obligated to him. Well, Bennyhoff got
in trouble with the wives of the publishers. He had a perpetual
hardon.

Stevenson: I'm told that.

Keller: Frank Contros owned the San Antonio newspaper.
I went down there for some reason. I think our contract was then
in trouble. I knew Frank very well because I was down there and
spent the night in their house on one of their honeymoon nights.
Frank took us to the Alamo Club in San Antonio, and he invited
several, about 10 or 12 people. Bennyhoff and I were invited. All
of a sudden I noticed that a steak came for Bennyhoff and he
wasn't there. He'd gone. He'd heard about a local dance hall
where he could pick up some skirt, and he'd dropped out of the
meeting. I was down there to give him a hand as division manager
and he just disappeared. Everyone noticed it but they said
nothing to me until later in New York after I knew Bennyhoff had
to be taken out of there. There were many other incidents. I met
Frank Contras at the ANPA at the Park Lane Hotel in New York. He
said, "What did you do with Bennyhoff?" I said we'd
made him Australia manager. "Well," he said,
"that's America's Siberia, isn't it?" I said,
"Well, that's your statement. We had to get him out of
there."

Stevenson: He didn't stay in Texas that long, only a
couple of years and he was gone.

Keller: Then we sent Ed Brandt down there and Ed
panicked. Bill Payette was made sales manager and I was moved up
to director of client relations. It was Mims and Bart's
idea that I never sat at my desk, and a sales manager sits at his
desk and directs people. My conception of a salesman was to know
the clients and visit them all. That is what I did. First we had
to get rid of Bennyhoff and then we put in Brandt. I didn't put
him in. Mims put him in. We had to get rid of Brandt. So Mims, in
his exasperation, went to Bart and said, "Well, what are we
going to do?" Bart said, "Let Lee Keller solve this.
It's his problem." I was then general sales manager, or had
been. So I went to Washington with Bill Payette for a radio
correspondents dinner. Mims said, "Well, Bill's the right
man, but you'll never sell it to him." I said, "I think
I will." So Bill and I had a few drinks that night and I
explained the whole thing, and Bill said, "I'm off to
Dallas." I got my title back as general sales manager.

Stevenson: I'd forgotten that. I think Bill Payette
loved Dallas and the Southwest. It was like a change of life for
him.

Keller: He was right for that down there. You know I
knew Bill very well from 1945 on. I met him in Los Angeles in
1945 and I was impressed with him. We put Bill in several other
jobs. Once he was sent to Latin America for Tom (Curran). We
brought him up as editor of Movietone.

Stevenson: He was a real trouble shooter, but he loved
that Texas and Southwest.

Keller: Then later Bill was made assistant general news
manager under Earl. He wanted to be named president of the United
Press. He would have been a good one.

Stevenson: I asked him that one time. He smiled and
said, "It will never happen. It doesn't do any good to talk
about it."

Keller: He would have been the man.

Stevenson: He would have been a good one.

Keller: Yes.

Stevenson: Well, he more or less proved that at United
Features when he went over there.

Keller: He did a tremendous job at United Features.

Stevenson: He got that thing straightened out. You know
they used to take us to these board meetings. During my first
four or five, six years as editor, Scripps-Howard still had an
office on Park Avenue. They had their board meetings there. Rod
would take me. Sometimes he'd take Tremaine. Sometimes he'd take
Bill Lyon of pictures or someone else. But I'd always go. They'd
have the United Media or United Features meeting at the same
time. Payette would sit there very quietly and listen to all the
sad stories that Beaton had to tell. That part of the meeting
would end and then they would call for the United Features
report. Bill was always very low key. He would bring along maybe
two index cards or the back of an envelope and write down a few
figures and would usually say something like, "Well, we had
a pretty good month last month. We made a profit of $600,000 or
made a profit of half a million." But he turned that thing
around and made it a real business. It kept increasing and
increasing. He would have made a good UPI president.

Keller: He would have. I went down to see Bill a few
days before he died. I know Jack Fallon and Don Brydon and others
went down.

Stevenson: We had about 10 of us that went down, a few
from Dallas.

Keller: I didn't go then because I had to go a couple
weeks later and I did and I went down to see Bill. He was
bedridden. Ginnie took me to the airport and she told me cancer
had spread to the brain and the spine and Bill was not for long.
He died a few days later.

Stevenson: Well, he was quite a remarkable guy, and I
think, my personal feeling, he would have made a good president.

Keller: You know he only had one ball.

Stevenson: I didn't know that.

Keller: Yes. He got one of them pinched in a chair in
the bureau and it had to be removed.

Stevenson: In Los Angeles?

Keller: No, in Montana.

Stevenson: When he first started?

Keller: Yes. But it never slowed him down.

Stevenson: He was quite a legendary guy. He and Jack
Fallon got to be very close. Fallon was quite a capable guy,
really good with the clients, very good writer.

Keller: I always kind of felt that Jack had it in for
me because I moved Bill from general sales manager to division
manager. But Bill was not a good sales manager. He got this
horrid Business Review. He'd cite all these magazines about how
to sell.

Stevenson: Actually, he and Jack were very close in
Dallas. When he went to Dallas, Jack was down there and it got to
be a good relationship.

Keller: He felt I had done something to Bill.

Stevenson: To derail him or side- track him? I
certainly never heard him say that.

Keller: I could see that Bill was never going to be
given a chance to be president. People at the top have all kinds
of ability and maneuvering to block out people that might be a
good president. They just seemed not to want him in there.

Stevenson: Well, comment on this. Did Baillie pick
Bartholomew? Did Bartholomew pick Mims? How did those all happen?

Keller: When Roy Howard, Bill Hawkins and others came
to California, Bart always took care of them. It's the old story,
that's when you can get your licks in, when the big shots come
in. Bart even bought a home up on Lake Tahoe right next to Bob
Scripps widow, who later married Bill Hawkins. Bart never
pushed it, but he laid the groundwork perfectly. He laid the
groundwork, and I know Bisco feared that Bart would come in. Ed
Williams was pathological about Bartholomew. Baillie fired him.
You don't remember these.

Stevenson: At our last lunch you said that Bisco was
one of the few people who could deal with Baillie.

Keller: Yes, he could.

Stevenson: I guess he figured he had some chance of
being president himself.

Keller: That's an interesting story because Bisco
spread the word around the New York office that he was going to
be the next president. He fired up his disciples, Carl Molander,
Gerry Rutman, Ross Downing and someone else. These people were
sure Bisco was in. I refused to get on his team. I just went on
my way and there was a great estrangement between Bisco and me
for quite a long time. But I knew that Bisco would be a horrible
president. I couldn't have worked for him.

Stevenson: Now, he was number two to Baillie?

Keller: Yes. I knew he'd never be president. I refused
to acknowledge him as the front runner.

Stevenson: Meanwhile Bart's building up all this
support on the West Coast.

Keller: That's right. It was the board that named Bart
to succeed Baillie. Nobody else had a chance.

Keller: In 1955. It was and after the ANPA. Baillie
took a long vacation. Bart had been named president. When Baillie
got back, Bart had moved Baillie out of the top office, back into
where Joe Jones was. When Baillie got back he upbraided Bart for
moving him out of his office. Bart said, "Well, Hugh, you
made this office a symbol of authority, and I'm the president,
therefore I felt I should have the office."

Stevenson: Was Baillie the guy who put in all the
paneling and that in that office?

Keller: Yes.

Stevenson: It was a beautiful office.

Keller: Baillie had delusions of grandeur, you know. He
had this single ring on the elevator that would bypass every
other. Baillie was basically a good police reporter. That's what
he was.

Stevenson: We talked about that. He was also very harsh
in his treatment of people.

Keller: I didn't get along with him at all. I was
amazed. When I look back over my career it astounds me that I was
able to get as far as I did under Baillie, because he didn't like
me.

Stevenson: At that point you were senior sales
executive?

Keller: I concentrated on sales because I knew I could
sell. As a matter of fact, after two years in the news department
everyone wanted me to get into sales. I didn't want to but I
agreed to take a chance at it. I was very successful in selling,
so I never got back to news at all. It's just as well because I'd
never have been a good newsman. I had no talent for news. I might
have had if I stayed and developed. But I didn't. Two years I
had.

Stevenson: With Baillie you were not yet sales manager
but you were senior sales person, right? Bisco was general
manager.

Keller: Bisco first became sales manager under Clem
Randau. When Randau left, then Bisco moved up to general business
manager. He didn't want anyone to become general sales manager.
He wanted to handle both jobs. He'd heard noises that Baillie
might bring in Mims Thomason, and Bisco feared Thomason, so he
quickly paved the way for me to become general sales manager.
That's how it happened.

Stevenson: One of the things you mentioned last time
was when the UP, United Press in those days, got into TTS, you
were pushing, I think, early 1950s, Baillie sort of dismissed it,
was chewing you out about losing money. Tell me about that.

Keller: That's right. We had to start Movietone and TTS
at the same time.

Stevenson: Oh, I see.

Keller: And at the period "closing," the
things I started were responsible for our entire loss. Then in
particular he worried about TTS because Tom Edwards was general
counsel and Tom -- you see what TTS meant was that you could
punch copy at a United Press bureau and feed the tape into a
linotype -- and this upset the linotype operators on newspapers.
Tom Edwards and Baillie and I all went out to the Tamarack
Country Club, which I belonged to at the time, for a round of
golf. During the round and when we later had a drink, Tom Edwards
said to Baillie, "If you don't stop Lee Keller from this TTS
folly, we're going to have a strike in every Scripps- Howard
newspaper."

Stevenson: He was, of course, working for
Scripps-Howard as well as us.

Keller: Anyway, we battened down and we kept the two
operations going. If we had stayed with the television and
eventually got satellite cable we would have had a worldwide news
service like CNN.

Stevenson: Some of the CNN people have told me that.

Keller: Beaton and I had a fight over Movietone. He had
absolutely no faith in it at all. One day I walked in the office
and he said, "We've got to do something about
Movietone." I took him on. We shouted at each other. Frank
Tremaine poked his head in the door and saw we were near blows.
He quickly bowed back out. We had a tremendous fight over that.
Then, it was the same night we were entertaining the (word not
intelligible) people.

Stevenson: Yes, the famous cocktail party.

Keller: Rod came up to me and said, "Are you still
mad at me?"

Stevenson: Rod would always apologize.

Keller: Yes, he did. I said "No." I said,
"Rod, Im not mad at you. I never was. I just think
you're wrong."

Stevenson: Many people have told me that. They would
argue and yell at each other and Beaton would come up a day later
or two days later, and say, "Look. Don't take it
personal." But boy when he was going at it!

Keller: He was fierce. I stood up to him.

Stevenson: I stood up to him too.

Keller: He really didn't like it, yet he respected
people who stood up to him.

Stevenson: I wonder, is there any kind of comparison?
Baillie had a hot temper. He would chew people out. Is it fair to
compare Baillie and Beaton?

Keller: Yes, Baillie liked people who stood up to him.

Stevenson: Would Baillie apologize later to somebody?

Keller: I dont think Baillie ever did.

Stevenson: There's a little difference there.

Keller: I think Baillie just let it wash away.

Stevenson: He apparently just liked to run over people.

Keller: He liked to bully people. He was a bully.

Stevenson: With a police reporter's mentality. Is that
what you are telling me?

Keller: Well, that's true. Bickel was the great one in
my opinion. Bickel had vision. He had a wonderful cosmopolitan
manner. He could meet with any head of state. He was a very
smooth, cultured, educated man. I don't know where it came from,
but he irritated the hell out of Roy Howard.

Stevenson: I know. You told me about that, (Howard)
chewing him (Baillie) out over the radio deal or something. That
probably pushed him out.

Keller: Roy loved to knock down people bigger than he
was. He was a little man.

Stevenson: He was a short man.

Keller: He loved to bring down the people who were big.
No matter what job they had he would take them on. He encountered
E. W. Scripps. He had brass balls. He went in there and told E.
W. Scripps what was wrong with United Press and Scripps said,
"Well, in that event, you go fix it. You're the general
manager."

Stevenson: Scripps was a big tall man. I saw Howard
once or twice, in his very last few years. Of course, by then he
was elder statesman.

Keller: I had lunch with him two days before he died.
He warned me against Stan Swinton. Stan Swinton was a miserable
little prick.

Stevenson: He sure was. He was in trouble all over the
world. I've heard stories about that. Well, Beaton talks about
principally the merger. Bartholomew got it in his head we could
be on an even parity with AP. We never could. We didn't have that
kind of money. Things started slipping. I think the big thing was
when we had to start buying all that damn computer equipment. We
finally had to go to Scripps and say, "We need five million.
We need six million. We need eight million."

Keller: I personally signed a contract for 10 million
dollars with Hearst newspapers. We got every Hearst newspaper
into the United Press, something we never had before. We could
have made it, but the real story where we lost out -- I don't
know how much you know about it. Do you know anything about the
Reuters effort?

Stevenson: The last one?

Keller: No. The one that Mims killed.

Stevenson: Mims and Rod Beaton were involved. Beaton
says he went to a meeting once down in Brighton.

Keller: It was Mims who went to that meeting.

Stevenson: Well, tell me about it.

Keller: The way it started. Shortly after the merger or
the acquisition of INS I went to Europe to meet the clients and
so forth. Frank Earl was in Germany, the manager for Europe at
the time. Tom Curran was in London. I will always remember this.
I conceived an idea. I knew about Reuters' system. It was
chartered by the royal government, could never give up control to
anyone. I knew that. I lay awake one night at the hotel in
Munich, thinking out a plan whereby we could merge with Reuters.
The essence of it is this: We would come together. Reuters would
operate in Australia and the kingdom and wherever they had a
priority. We would operate in the United States as United Press.
They would operate as Reuters in the Commonwealth. All the rest
of the world would be Reuters-UPI, or UPI- Reuters. This way we
would set up a board to handle the operation of two services
which would feed into one headquarters and that report would be
distributed outside the priority areas. We said we would get the
Reuters report in the United States and Reuters would get
the UPI report, whatever it wanted, for the Commonwealth.

Stevenson: Keep the name.

Keller: Yes. This didn't confront the ownership
problem. We'd have a simple way of resolving any disputes. This
would be a separate operation. The UPI-Reuters would be a
separate operation. Well, I carried it before our own board and
they agreed to pursue it. Bart was for it. Reuters were intrigued
with it too. But then Mims became president and immediately they
moved me out of all connection with it. It was Mims' thought that
we were going to take over Reuters. He wanted to be the top
Pooh-Bah in that.

Stevenson: That would be about '65?

Keller: It was '62. Right after Mims became president.
Reuters was having a board meeting and had invited Mims to come
over and make a presentation of what we had in mind. Well, Mims
felt that meant they were going to cave and we could take them
over. I wasn't included in it. He took Al Bock with him. They got
a taxi. It's about a 25 minute ride by train, but they took a
taxi. . . .

(Tape interrupted. It resumes with Stevenson noting a blank
spot of several minutes because he "had not pushed the
buttons properly." Keller repeated some of the things he
said about the Reuters-UPI merger talks in 1962.)

Stevenson: Your pension is through Scripps-Howard?

Keller: It's in the UP pension fund but my part of it
was funded by Scripps-Howard. The pension is situated in such a
mess the government has to pick up the bad, for all the companies
that have failed and unable to fulfill their pension obligations.

Stevenson: That story about Brighton is very
interesting. You clarified it for me that it was Mims and Al Bock
that got a taxi and went down, with help from a bottle of Scotch.

Keller: I don't know who succeeded Beaton in London?
Was it Blaby?

Stevenson: No. Blaby was always the sales manager. Who
was it that replaced Rod as division manager? Page had gone over
to Hong Kong.

Keller: Was it Bradford?

Stevenson: No. That was an earlier time. Beaton came
back to New York as general manager. Somewhere in there Page went
to Hong Kong, to Tokyo and then later Hong Kong. But who
succeeded Beaton. That's a good question. I'll have to research.

Stevenson: You never worked closely enough with Page to
know anything about him, did you? Page was sort of a big spender.
He liked high living.

Keller: He was a disaster. He's having trouble now.
Lots of it. (Go ahead and smoke. It doesn't bother me.)

Stevenson: No. I'll have a smoke when we leave. I'm
quitting.

Keller: I used to smoke a little bit.

Stevenson: I'm sure you would smoke a cigar if you were
in Cuba.

Keller: I don't ever smoke cigars.

Stevenson: You're looking well, and fit.

Keller: I'm well. I'll be 88 August 31.

Stevenson: You're about to take a little vacation?

Keller: We are going over to Allentown Sunday. Peggy's
niece's recital. She's a piano teacher there. Peggy told her we
would go over and hear it.

Stevenson: And tomorrow you are talking to the
University of Colorado people.

Keller: We are having lunch with the vice president in
charge of development and the dean of the College of Arts and
Science. Middleton is going to tell me how they plan to operate,
what they need. He wants me to sign the papers for the
contribution. Heretofore I just put the contribution in my will.
But I've decided now to fund it as much as I can before I die.
The lawyers told me it was a good idea if I could do it because I
get a tax advantage while I'm funding it and there's no tax on
the amount when the estate goes later. I have a revocable living
trust for both my wife and me. You are allowed $600,000 to pass
on without tax, and the balance of that is subject to the federal
estate tax which now is 45 or 46 percent and I think it will be
raised to 55 percent under Clinton.

Stevenson: I heard that figure. Now, the University of
Colorado, would this be part of the journalism school or
separate?

Keller: It won't be part of the journalism school.
Liberal Arts. They're going to put in a course on the amendments.

Stevenson: The Bill of Rights, the First Amendment?

Keller: The Bill of Rights. That's the way I understand
this. I don't want this in the journalism school. I don't have
much confidence in that.

Stevenson: I think it's good step. I still haven't
heard any more from Al Kaff except what I told you. Al figured he
might be the staff fund-raiser.

Keller: I missed it down there at the Downhold meeting.
Al was leaving Cornell at that time and he wanted something to
do. You say he's moving?

Stevenson: That's what he told Bryce Miller. He was
looking at a couple of condominiums. Bryce Miller's wife is in
real estate. She was also going to show him some things. Bryce
got the feeling it was just a matter of time before he moves back
out here.

Keller: You know, this First Amendment thing. There's
only one in the United States now and it's in Nashville, at
Vanderbilt. I read it again this morning, the original grant was
$1,600,000. Whether that came from the Freedom Forum or not I
don't know. They have a board of directors and a general manager
and everything. What they do, they push the First Amendment,
monitor it, have seminars, speakers down there on the First
Amendment Center. It's a separate operation. But I think it ought
to be integrated in the university's curriculum. I don't know
exactly how it will work.

Stevenson: I agree with you. I also think I am
basically in agreement to keep it away from the journalism
school. But the president or somebody is going to have to look it
over carefully.

Keller: This First Amendment Center could be a focal
point for all of the Rocky Mountain region. I just hope they see
it right. I hesitate to put any restrictions on them. In fact, my
lawyer said don't tie the university's hands, just make the
contribution. I have been talking to them and I haven't put any
restrictions on it at all. I just talked to them with ideas and I
think they appreciate that, but I am leaving it to them.

Stevenson: Well, they, if they're smart, in this area,
it's not like science or chemistry or anything like that, they
would follow your wishes. And they could go out and raise money.

Keller: I read a couple of months ago, reread this
"Miracle in Philadelphia." It was written by the gal
who wrote the biography of Oliver Wendell Holmes, a very good
writer. Anyway, she wrote a book called, "Miracle of
1988" or "Miracle in Philadelphia." It's all about
the convention in Philadelphia in 1785 in which they formed a
strong central government. Up to that time there was a
confederation of states and each state was independent. They only
cooperated when it was to their advantage.

Stevenson: Is this what got you thinking about it?

Keller: That's what got me thinking.

Stevenson: Plus talking to your nephew, who didn't know
anything.

Keller: So this thing has evolved. By the way, there is
a letter I received from George McCadden who is writing a book. I
thought you'd like to read it.

Stevenson: I was told he was doing something about
another man out in the West.

Keller: Well, he'd been down to Australia and it is
interesting because as Australian manager he got the UP back into
Australia. Go ahead and read it. Are you in a hurry?

Stevenson: No. I told my wife I'd be home about three
o'clock. You and I'll walk over to Wallach's in a few minutes and
wait for Peggy.

Stevenson: Well. (reading the letter) He'd been to
Brisbane, and Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, talking about the
buildings going up. It says's they've managed to get a trial
service and Bill Curry, the manager . . . a bit about money.
They're spending on a new communications lash-up, open a bureau
in Phnom-Penh, Cambodia. Well, that's interesting. He says,
"I'm completing my book." He's writing a book about
some California businessman or something. I heard that from
somebody else. Somewhere along the lines of Bart's book. He's
helping this other fellow put together.

Keller: I didn't know that.

Stevenson: He says Hank Rieger -- there's a name for
you -- is going to get him an agent.

Keller: I thought you'd be interested in that because
you're writing a book.

Stevenson: I am going to work at it Lee, and get some
pieces. I'm going to talk to, I'd like to go see Tom Curran, but
I'm told he has Parkinson's disease.

Keller: Tom talks to Elizabeth and Elizabeth writes the
letters. Tom can't. I had a picture of him on his 91st birthday.

Stevenson: In his beautiful kitchen or somewhere,
sitting in the library or den.

Keller: The dining table.

Stevenson: Yes. That was it.

Keller: I know what Parkinson's is because I lost a
friend in the past few months who had Parkinson's very bad. You
know you lose control of your muscles.

Stevenson: Yes, Roger, in his letter, mentions that you
and Tom Curran probably had the better focus on the big picture
of United Press.

Keller: Tom's been at it a long time.

Stevenson: He (Tatarian) says Tom has had difficulty
now because of the Parkinson's he can't talk very well.

Keller: Tom said to me in a letter Elizabeth wrote, he
dictated it, he was very sorry he destroyed his papers but he
had.

Stevenson: He got rid of a lot. His memory wouldn't be
that good.

Keller: I don't think so.

Stevenson: He sent me some papers. I've got probably 20
or 30 letters he sent me, and one letter implies there was a
discussion between him and Bart about Tom coming to New York and
being heir apparent. And Tom said, "I prefer to stay in
London."

Keller: That was not quite right. Here's what happened.
Bart brought Tom up to New York right after he became president
and installed him in that office which I later had, Joe
Jones office, and made him assistant general manager. I
think that was the title. It was the title, assistant general
manager. Bart was the general manager and chief executive. Bisco
was general business manager, Earl general news manager. There
hadn't been a title of general manager overall, except the
president. Bart stayed there for a while and Bradford had gone to
London as European manager. Pretty soon he got into problems. Tom
didn't like it in New York at all, so he asked Bart to make him
European manager, and that's where he went. Tom loved it over
there.

Stevenson: What the letter implies is that Bart said
something, "Since our discussion I now realize you do not
want to come back to New York." I don't know, that would be
in later years, coming back to New York. They could have had some
conversation and maybe it came up just routinely. "Do you
want to come back some day?" or something like that.

Keller: I think the way this worked, Tom had gone to
Europe as European vice president When he (Bart) appointed Mims
as president. I think before he did he asked Tom if he wanted to
come back to New York. Tom said no.

Stevenson: Not necessarily as president, though? Bart
was pretty well committed to Mims.

Keller: No. Tom wanted to be president. I'm not really
clear on what happened there. The nut of it is Tom stayed in
Europe and Mims became president.

Stevenson: Yes. What Tom says is he's glad he stayed
because he preferred London. He loved the lifestyle. He dressed
in his bowler.

Keller: No doubt about it. He didn't like the lifestyle
in New York at all.

Stevenson: Apparently he did a good job in Europe.

Keller: He did a good job. Tom did a good job
everywhere except that he had no meaningful achievements. He just
was a hand- holder. He was wonderful at client relations.
Everyone loved him. But you can't name a single innovation put in
the service by Tom Curran.

Stevenson: That's a good statement, Lee, and probably
will wrap it up for today. We're going to have another lunch in
the future, I hope, or another visit. "Meaningful
achievements"? What did Baillie achieve, No. 1?

Keller: I think Baillie achieved this. He made the
United Press an important factor in the news service business. He
was a charismatic, powerful figure. Baillie really got up on his
career when he got up on the stage and tackled some senator
during the Republican convention in Chicago.

Stevenson: You mentioned that. I can look up the
details.

Keller: I think it is in "Deadline Every
Minute."

Stevenson: Yes, probably, and in Hugh Baillie's own
book, "High Tension," all about himself. That's a good
point. He had all this police mentality and drive.

Keller: Baillie was an impressive figure, really. I
have to hand him that. He was an impressive man. He gave the UP a
lot of upward spin.

Stevenson: That's well put. What did Bartholomew do in
"great achievement"?

Keller: Bart claims the acquisition of INS. He set his
heart on that. Bart had a tenacious personality. He would set a
goal for himself and nothing would disturb him. Time and again.
Oh, the big story that I have to tell you and you may not want to
print it. Bart and I had been out with Gortotowski (a Hearst
executive) in February of 1957. We negotiated the first deal for
INS. We thought it was a pretty good deal. So we came back and
presented it to the board of directors meeting on Lincoln's
birthday, Feb. 12.

Stevenson: 1957.

Keller: I was there. Bart made the presentation. Roy
listened. When Bart finished, he (Howard) said, "Now, Bart.
You and Lee are just a couple of salesman. You don't know how to
negotiate. That's a terrible deal." He said, "I can
negotiate a deal with somebody, the general manager of the Hearst
papers, in 24 hours." Bart got red. I could see the red come
up the back of his neck. His bald head turned fiery red. But he
held his temper. He said to Roy, "If you can do that, go to
it." Roy said, "I'll take it over." This was in
February. Next thing we heard from Roy Howard was on July 3,
1957, several months later. He came over with some notes and
said, "I have just been talking to Ed Curran. There is no
chance at all that we can ever put these two organizations
together. I've worked at it now since February and there is no
chance." That's the way that ended. Bart picked it up then.

Stevenson: At one point you said that Bart called old
Bickel to come and help out?

Keller: Yes. Bart was going to Europe. He wanted Bickel
to meet Gortotowski. Bick was then about 90 years old. Way up
there. Bickel had won the respect of everybody. He was a
wonderful man. You never met him, of course.

Stevenson: I talked to him on the phone once or twice.

Keller: He was a remarkable man. Personality.
Intelligence. He wrote a book called, "New Empires."

Stevenson: You mentioned that at our last lunch. I've
got to find it.

Keller: I don't know whether I have it. I had it.

Stevenson: It was about the news service world?

Keller: It was about the importance of going into
radio. This was his own undoing because Scripps-Howard didn't
want radio news at all, didn't want radio to have news at all.
Anyway, Bart went to Europe after the Bickel meeting. While Bart
was in Europe he told me, "Bisco had a chance to do this.
Mims got in a fight with Seymour Berkson. Baillie had had a
meeting with Gortotowski. Nothing happened at all. It was always,
No. Gortowski has now turned this down again." He
said, "Lee, I still think this could be done. You know
Charlie McCabe. Charlie McCabe is for this." Charlie McCabe
used to work for us. He was then publisher of the New York
Mirror, a Hearst paper. He said, "You work on Charlie McCabe
while I'm gone. I appoint you caretaker of the
conversations."

Stevenson: Right. He used the phrase, "caretaker
of the conversation."

Keller: I went up to where Charlie had a big home. He
married the daughter of a rabbi, you know, a beautiful girl,
Ruth. We went up there and had meetings at the Palm and at other
places in New York. Finally, Bart was getting back in early
August. I had lunch with McCabe and I said, "Now, look, I've
got to show some progress for the summer we've been talking. I
want you to tell me if you think this could be done and
how." He said, "It can be done, but I don't think you
can do it. I'll tell you what it is." He said, "You've
got to give Hearst a financial interest."

Stevenson: Oh, yes.

Keller: So I took this back when Bart got back. Bart
just kind of laughed. He said, "You know, Scripps-Howard has
never given anyone a minority interest. I think it's
hopeless." But he said, "Let's present it to Roy
Howard." We walked over to the King's Arm hotel, the old
Barclay, and had lunch with Roy and Jack. On the way over Bart
said, "I'll bet you two dollars that Roy will be in a nasty
mood, that he will quarrel with the waiter and he'll ridicule the
idea and throw it out the window." I said, "Well, I'll
take the bet." So we presented our case. He said, "Lee
has heard from McCabe and has this idea." Instead of
exploding, Roy said, "Well, you know, that's not a bad idea.
I've always felt that the United Press should widen the ownership
and have a public audit. It would be a more reputable news
service. Go to it!" Well, we could hardly contain ourselves.
We knew then it was going to happen. On the way back Bart handed
me two dollars. Then it got off the track again. Finally, one
day, Spyros Skouras was giving a lunch for Peterson, the
president of the Bank of America, giving a big dinner at the
Waldorf, a big dinner. I was invited and I went over there. I had
never met the head of Hearst, Berlin. During the cocktail
reception I saw Berlin standing and I went over and introduced
myself. I said, "Mr. Berlin, I think it is just a shame we
couldn't put UP and INS together." Berlin said, "I
don't see any reason why we can't." All the time we'd been
told Berlin was against it. I was on the phone to McCabe and
said, "Look. Here's what Berlin said." Then I called
Bart. Bart was stomping out the grapes in his vineyard out in
California. I said, "Bart, here's what happened. You must
call Gortatowski and tell him what happened." So Bart called
Gortatowski and Gorty said, "All right. Let's meet, when you
get back and I get back in late November." He said,
"I'll tell you what well do. We'll have a meeting at
the Plaza Hotel. Then, in order to keep this secret, we'll go
down to Miami. You stay in one hotel. We'll stay in another.
We'll negotiate a deal." That's what happened.

Stevenson: It was consummated in '58, in the summer.

Keller: This was in November of '57. Bart and I had met
Joe King-Smith and Gortatowski in Miami Beach. They stayed at the
Fontainbleu and we stayed up at Bell Harbor. We'd meet at one
place one day and at the other another. The idea was wed
keep this secret. Then some columnist in the Miami Beach paper
said, "Strange goings-on with the news services. The head of
INS, UP and AP are all in town. Wonder what's happening?"

Stevenson: Was he wrong about AP?

Keller: AP was down there for another reason. The guy
that preceded Wes Gallagher. My memory is slipping.

Stevenson: I don't remember either.

Keller: You know, last night I tried to think of the
New York senior senator. I knew his first name was Pat and I
couldnt think of the last name until this morning. It
happened I saw it in the news, Pat Moynahan. After I'd thrown the
news away, I came back to the library and started reading and
immediately forgot the name again and couldn't remember it. I
went back the third time and finally got it implanted in my
brain.

Stevenson: The final INS deal was in the summer of '58.
I was down in North Carolina. Wayne Sargent was in Atlanta. He
called us all in. Wait a minute now, that right? Beaton may have
called us to announce it privately. But your original thought, if
I heard it correctly, is that Hearst should have some small
interest, so they wound up with five percent.

Keller: It was McCabe who made that suggestion to me. I
said, "I'll present that to Bart but I think it will be
ruled out."

Stevenson: That was at your two dollar lunch.

Keller: That's right.

Stevenson: That's remarkable.

Keller: That's the whole story.

Stevenson: We should walk over to Wallach's and meet
Peggy. Thank you.